Hey guys. After reading of Blazik's endeavor into an IPX, I decided to give it a shot. Im running into some problems though, here is what im getting. Everything is there hardware wise, though it does have a larger hdd (4.5gb). It also has an ethernet card in it as well. As far as I can tell these are the only deviations from a stock IPX. While booting, it takes a full 30-40 seconds for a video signal to get to the monitor. I do have a 13w3-vga adaptor though, so that _might_ be the cause but im not sure. Anyway, I am not able to boot from the hdd, though id prefer to wipe it, and put a fresh os on it. I have a bootable image on floppy and an ethernet cable plugged in. It should be getting an address from my dhcp server.

Now, if my memory serves me. I once read some info about the OBP interpreting a bogus address for some reason? Can't remember what exactly the cause was, but it was common with older sparcs. And also, I get this same error every time i boot. Im not real good in the OBP, but will the floppy image not boot because of not being able to get the IP address? I can't really make any sense of all this.

Read the NVRAM FAQ at that link closely. Your chip battery might not be toast, it might just need reinitializing. I had to do this to an Ultra 10 I bought used because it had a PROM password set and I couldn't change anything. I booted up whilst holding STOP-N to zeroize the NVRAM contents, and the resulting messages were very similar to what you are reporting. I was then able to, following the instructions in that FAQ, re-program the NVRAM to an operable status. (You need to get the ethernet address off the little yellow sticker on the NVRAM chip before you begin.) Only if you reprogram it and then it forgets who it is after being turned off for awhile, or if the system clock drifts while it's off do you need a new NVRAM chip. Try re-programming it first, though.

I'm glad I did. I had actually ordered the chip from Mouser and cancelled it the next morning after I got everything working okay. I (against my better judgment, but that never stops me) followed some advice I read on the Net and tried to bypass the PROM password by turning the machine on with the NVRAM removed and then re-inserting it with the power on. That, ummm, didn't work, but I was certain the NVRAM was fried. However, much to my surprise, booting with STOP-N reset it, and all I had to do was follow the steps to re-initialize it. It's pretty easy, actually.

Oh and I dont get a signal from the onboard cg6 at all. It might be dead but I had a spare TurboXGX which works just fine (using 13w3 adapter and AUI -> 10baseT adapter on the IPX)._________________Gentoo Linux/Sparc Developer
http://dev.gentoo.org/~bazik/

My IPX still has a full NVRam battery
Oh and I dont get a signal from the onboard cg6 at all. It might be dead but I had a spare TurboXGX which works just fine (using 13w3 adapter and AUI -> 10baseT adapter on the IPX).

My video signal is fine, though I cant figure out why its delayed like it is. Im no Sparc expert, but all the ones ive been around all produce video on a monitor much faster than that.